TRANMERE boss Dave Watson is concerned about the growing backlog of fixtures facing his side.

Yesterday's postponement at Oldham was the second consecutive time a Rovers away match has been called off for a frozen pitch following the cancellation of the game at Peterborough the week before Christmas.

While only two games in the second division survived in the New Year's Day programme, Watson is still concerned about falling behind the club's promotion rivals because of a lack of games played.

"Ideally, when you are winning it is nice to keep on going and keep on playing. With games getting called off, it could cause a bit of a backlog," admitted Watson.

Rovers had a game in hand on most of their second division rivals before yesterday, having played 24 games.

Watson is concerned that, through no fault of their own, Rovers will find themselves having a mountain to climb to get among the division's top sides despite being in a rich vein of form which has seen them lose just once in their last 10 fixtures and win four of their last five.

He added: "A backlog of games is exactly what we don't want. There are

one or two teams not playing in the FA Cup on Saturday so they will get another game under their belts. We will just have to get on with playing our game and keep working hard to keep our good run going."

Tranmere travel to Southend on Saturday in the FA Cup third round.

Yesterday's postponement did provide one fillip for Watson.

It has given Steve Yates, Wayne Allison and Sean Flynn extra time to shake off minor niggles picked up against Brentford last weekend which made them doubtful for yesterday.

Tranmere now have three re-arranged league fixtures to play over the next six weeks, with the Oldham match joining the away games at Peterborough and Brighton as matches that must be switched to midweek kick-offs.